There are numerous articles of wearing apparel that have decorative or ornamental illumination incorporated into the article. For instance, articles of wearing apparel such as a hats, shoes, shirts and neckties have been made that contained illumination devices such as lights. In such prior articles, the illumination means such as lights have been an integral part of the articles. Consequently, the device had one fixed illumination display. This meant that the hat or other article of clothing was manufactured for one particular type of use associated with the display and there was no alternative or other use for the article.
Even with articles that might have their light displays altered or changed, such as by altering the circuit that controls illumination, it was still not possible to use the article such as a hat without the illumination display. This placed a definite limit on the usefulness for the illuminated articles such as a hat. With such articles or hats this single use problem is compounded by the fact that the hat may also have decorative features in addition to the illumination decoration. Examples of such hats are the various caps that have logos and the like on them that are used by the various football, baseball and other sports teams. Such logos already limit the appeal of such hats to those who support a particular team and then the addition of light emitters even further restricts the number of individuals who might be interested in such a cap or hat.
Consequently, it would be very advantageous to expand the portion of the population that might be interested in the illuminated hat and to provide the prospective purchaser and user of the hat with more options in terms of uses for the hat. Another problem with hats that have their illumination means contained therein is that the hat can not be readily washed or cleaned without the risk of damaging the illumination means that is attached to the hat.
The new hat ornamental illumination circuit accessory of this invention overcomes these problems and provides ornamental illumination for a hat that is designed to be separate from the hat until it is put into use. This permits the hat to be used without any lights or illumination for normal protective or similar uses. Then when it is desired, the user of the hat can convert it into a decorative hat by adding the necessary hat ornamental illumination circuit to the hat. In addition, due to the construction of the hat ornamental illumination circuit accessory that has a large portion sized and shaped to be concealed within the hat it is not readily apparent to those individuals viewing the illuminated hat that the illumination apparatus is readily detachable from the hat.
When the need or desire for an illuminated hat has passed, the user of the hat can readily remove the ornamental illumination circuit accessory and use the hat without any illumination. The ornamental illumination circuit accessory invention also has provisions for enabling its lights to be connected to hats having different construction.